Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and an obviously undermanned U.S. Army have combined to produce another boomlet for reviving the military conscription that ended in 1973. Bringing back the draft, however, is an unlikely option, at least for now. It's strongly opposed by the Pentagon, the Bush administration and a majority in Congress.

But there is a gathering consensus that the war against terrorism is producing global commitments that the Army in particular simply cannot meet adequately in its present reduced size.

That same growing consensus favors an increase in Army strength. The numbers being recommended range from the 20,000 troop stop-gap increase recently authorized by Congress to the 40,000 favored by House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Duncan Hunter to the 80,000 proposed by Barry McCaffrey, a retired Army general and respected military analyst now teaching at West Point.

An overview of Army ground-force strength and commitments shows why more troops are urgently needed.

Since the end of the Cold War a decade ago, the Army has shrunk from 18 combat divisions on active duty to 10 today, from 800,000 soldiers to about 495,000, roughly a 40 percent reduction. Further reductions have pared Army Reserve and National Guard strength, now an indispensable component of the Army's combat and support forces. Nearly 40 percent of all U.S. ground forces in Iraq today or scheduled for deployment there comes from Reserve and National Guard units.

Yet, even as Army ground forces have shrunk, what military planners call "operational tempo" (the frequency of overseas deployments) has increased dramatically for active-duty Army forces, Army Reserve and National Guard units. From peacekeeping duties in Bosnia and Kosovo, strategically essential garrison duty in Germany, Italy, Korea, Japan and lesser commitments in scores of other countries to the combat fronts in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Army is being stretched beyond prudent limits.

Lt. Gen. Richard Cody, the Army's deputy chief of staff, reported last month that more than 330,000 of the Army's 495,000 troops are deployed overseas in more than 120 countries.

Of the Army's combat forces, about 70 percent is currently overseas in war-fighting, peacekeeping or garrison deployments. Among other manpower strains, that leaves a too-small strategic reserve – perhaps as little as five brigades, the equivalent of about a division and a half – to cover any and all new emergencies.

The nightmare contingency for Army planners is a sudden conflict in Korea, half a world away from the wars being fought today in Afghanistan and Iraq. Reinforcing the Army's single combat division stationed on the Korean peninsula would take everything the Army and Marine Corps have left and still constitute an inadequate force for even a brief Korean conflict.

Meanwhile, the strain of combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan has left four of the Army's 10 divisions in the two lowest readiness classifications. These divisions, representing nearly half of the Army's combat strength, will require six months or longer to be restored to full readiness.

The U.S. military's 1990s force structure was officially configured to fight and win two "nearly simultaneous" medium-sized wars, presumably one in the Middle East and a second in Asia. Imprudently, this two-war scenario and the force structure required to fight it were discarded, largely for budgetary reasons, in the late 1990s. The diminished strategy that resulted reflected the reduced size of the U.S. military but not, as we now know, the threats to vital American interests.

Rep. Hunter, the El Cajon Republican who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, notes that fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan last year plus other commitments required 19 of the Army's 33 combat brigades, 19 of the Marine Corps' 24 combat battalions plus, during March and April of 2003, seven of the Navy's 12 aircraft carrier battle groups. All this was required to fight just one of the two "medium-sized" regional conflicts, fulfilling just half of the 1990s two-war strategy.

The Pentagon's planning last fall for Iraq called for U.S. occupation forces there to be reduced to 105,000 by this spring. But when growing resistance required keeping at least half again that number in Iraq, the Pentagon had no choice but the morale-breaking expedient of extending the tours of 20,000 combat soldiers who had just completed a year of combat duty and were about to be flown home.

The 146,000 soldiers and Marines now in Iraq are struggling to contain a surge in terrorist violence that killed 100 American soldiers and Marines and wounded hundreds more during the first three weeks of April. Critics who argued that the ground forces committed to Iraq were never large enough to fully secure and stabilize the country have been vindicated by events. Yet, an overcommitted Army, with four of its 10 divisions rated unready and a wholly inadequate strategic reserve, has few new forces to send.

The strain on troops and their families of repeated overseas deployments must soon begin to deplete the Army's vital human capital, both in the active-duty and Reserve/National Guard forces. Although re-enlistment rates are holding for now (a tribute to the American soldiers' patriotism and dedication), declining re-enlistments are almost inevitable.

In today's all-volunteer force, even the lower enlisted ranks include many married soldiers with families. The stress on troops in Army Reserve and National Guard units filled with citizen soldiers who have families and civilian careers will be greater still. Many Reserve and Guard troops are now on their second, active-duty deployments (typically lasting up to a year) since 9/11.

The arguments for turning to a reformed, equitable draft are getting a more serious hearing these days. Congressional heavyweights like Republican Sens. John McCain and Chuck Hagel, both straight-talking Vietnam veterans, are among those who advocate some form of required national service. So do many centrist New Democrats, a political movement whose champions included Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Northwestern University sociologist Charles Moskos makes an articulate, informed case for renewed conscription.

But reviving the draft is still a minority position. Military conscription is years away if it ever returns.